Quick History Stops: Whitinsville
Despite all my travels, I have never done Quick History Stops for local towns. Since I completed updates on my adventures from last museum season, and the next season does not start until April, I will be revisiting small towns within the Blackstone River Valley to showcase all the history they have to offer. The first stop is Whitinsville, a village of Northbridge, MA and one of six sites in Blackstone River Valley National Historical Park. These quick history stops have some overlap with the Wonders of Whitinsville ranger-led walking tour from June 2023 and is based on a class that I taught through Osher Lifelong Learning Institute at Tufts University.
Overlooking the mills and Mumford River is the James Fletcher Homestead built in 1770. James Fletcher constructed a blacksmith shop near his home in 1772. Twenty-one years later, in 1793, Paul Whitin married Fletcher’s daughter Betsey. By 1809, Whitin and Fletcher established Northbridge Cotton Manufacturing Company. They included two of Fletcher’s sons, Samuel and James, in the business in 1815. Fletcher retired in 1826, selling his shares to Whitin. Today, the homestead holds Northbridge Historical Society.
Whitin built the Little Brick Mill in 1826, the same year his father-in-law retired, making the building the oldest surviving, unaltered textile mill remaining in Massachusetts. The mill use the Rhode Island System of manufacturing, employing members of farming families who already lived in the community. Initially, the business employed forty workers, but by 1830, a mere four years later, the operation expanded to employ 146 workers. By 1845, the building became the machine shop to the growing Whitin enterprise. Today, the building is part of Alternatives Unlimited, a branch of Open Sky Community Services, which serves adults with intellectual disabilities and hosts events throughout the year. World War II Comes to the Valley took place at this venue in 2022 and 2023.
Across the street is Whitin Cotton Mill built of granite in 1845, replacing the Little Brick Mill as the main manufacturing facility. In 1923, as the company kept expanding, it changed to the research branch of Whitin Machine Works. Since 1976, the building has housed disability accessible apartments. Across the bridge from the Little Brick Mill is Northbridge Town Hall, built by brothers John Crane Whitin and Charles Pinckney Whitin in 1876. Paul Whitin’s house originally stood on this site. This building is still the town hall and has a small parking lot, the perfect place to put your vehicle for an hour or two while exploring Whitinsville on foot.
Up the hill is Aldrich School, built in 1890 by the Whitin family with extra bricks from the mills. This was the first formal school in Whitinsville, and the one my maternal grandfather and his sister attended. The building now holds extra town hall offices. In 1906, Whitin Lasell School became the next school building constructed by the Whitins and has been Northbridge Middle School since 2009. Nearby is Carr Funeral Home in Taft Mansion. The Carr family hearse service had served the Blackstone Valley beginning in the 1850s. Meanwhile, in 1875, the Victorian style mansion was built for Gustavus Taft, the Superintendent of Works at Whitin Machine Works under John C. Whitin. The funeral home came to the location in 1947.
Across the street from Aldrich School is “The Gym” or Whitin Community Center. The idea for a YMCA-type organization in Whitinsville began with George Marston Whitin, the grandson of Paul and Betsey Whitin. He was Treasurer and CEO of Whitin Machine Works from 1886 through 1920 but died unexpectedly in 1920 at 64 years old. His four daughters — Elizabeth, Elsa, Katherine, and Lois — gave funds to construct gym and pool, which opened in 1923 as one of the best recreational facilities in Massachusetts. At a time when the YMCA was segregated, the gym was open to all people regardless of age, gender, and race. During the 1920s and 1930s, “The Gym” served as an Olympic training site, hosted Boston Celtics games before the founding of the National Basketball Association (NBA) and hosted Negro League Baseball Games. A major fire at “The Gym” in 1959 led to a community funded rebuilding effort, as the Whitins no longer lived in the area. While the organization had major financial difficulties in the 1960s, the 1990s saw the addition of tennis courts, a larger swimming pool, and the restoration of the arboretum on the grounds.
John C. Whitin founded the Whitinsville Bank in 1870. The organization merged with a bank in Uxbridge founded by its own millowner, Moses Taft, to form Unibank. The building currently houses the Massachusetts State Police Museum & Learning Center. While one cannot serve both God and money (Matthew 6:24), the Village Congregational Church is conveniently located next door. In 1836, this building was constructed due to a schism at the Congregational Church in Northbridge. This was the preferred branch of the Whitins, so they constructed the building from stone instead of the whitewashed wood used for most classic New England churches. In 1864, the Whitins donated a mansion to serve as the parsonage.
Next door to the church is the Whitinsville Social Library. The library originally opened in Town Hall in 1844 as a subscription service, hence the world “Social” in the name. Other social-turned-public libraries appearing on the blog include Amesbury Public Library and Yarmouth Port Library, but these did not retain their original name. By 1876, the organization re-established itself as a free or public library. Brothers Edward Whitin and Arthur Fletcher Whitin paid Boston-based architect Richard Clipston Sturgis to build the Georgian Revival style library from granite quarried in nearby Milford, MA. The interior detailing was carved of California Redwood. Constructed lasted from 1913 to 1917, with images of the building featured in the magazine American Architect, and the brothers sold the completed building to the town for $1. The library is still supported by a trust fund set up by the Whitin family.
The Whitin family constructed Whitin Machine Works beginning in 1847 as a two-story mill with octagonal corners powered by the Mumford River. Affectionately called “The Shop” by its employees, the original plan accommodated 200 textile workers and continued to expand into the 1920s. In 1923, a ceremonial balcony and clock tower were added to the building across from “The Gym” facing Main Street. The completed building had 1.75 million feet of floor space, what was then the largest textile mill in the world, including a machine shop and foundry, with all machinery produced in-house. The Whitin family built the three-and-a-half story, red brick Linwood Mill in 1866 to process cotton and produce textiles. In 1989, the building was added to the National Register of Historic Places. Today, the building holds an apartment complex and several businesses, including the visitors center for Blackstone River Valley National Heritage Corridor.
Most of Whitinsville is highly walkable, although I recommend driving to Linwood Mill and parking near the visitor center. A walking tour of the area is available on the National Park Service website. I hope to see you in the area soon!